Monday. 09:30. Manolo walks in with a firm stride. New smile. The energy of a leadership retreat at a country hotel with horses.
—Jose, I've made a decision.
—Don't tell me you've signed up for Hyrox.
—No. I'm going to give the team ownership.
He says it as if he were signing the Magna Carta. All he's missing is the parchment and the quill.
—The notification system migration. I want them to lead it.
—Manolo, that's what I've been asking you for for six months.
—Right, but now the idea has matured.
Manolo-to-Spanish translation: he read a LinkedIn carousel by a guy who doesn't even manage his own dog.
I look at him. I want to believe him. Because the team is good. All they need is for Manolo to stop breathing down their necks like a dragon out of Game of Thrones.
—Fine. Do it. Give them context, give them criteria, and then do the hardest thing there is for someone like you.
—What?
—Disappear.
Two weeks go by. The team works. They talk to users. They discard the obvious option —which was Manolo's favorite— because they discover it creates more problems than it solves. They argue. They correct course. They land on a solid proposal. With the team's fingerprints on every corner.
They present it on Friday. Manolo nods. Says "good work."
On Monday at 07:14 I get an email. Subject: "Notifications v2 — My proposal".
Fourteen pages. Manolo has rewritten the entire project over the weekend. At the end, one line: "I've incorporated some of your ideas," which in corporate speak means "I used your proposal as a napkin to wipe my nose, and mine as the tablecloth everything will be built on."
At 09:00 I'm in his office.
—Manolo, what the hell is this?
—I improved the proposal.
—No. You replaced it. Improving is adding a question. Replacing is taking the team's painting home and painting over it.
—But my version is better.
—Maybe it's 10% better on some detail. And do you know what that 10% costs? An entire team that will never try again....
Because they already know it doesn't matter what they do: on Monday Manolo comes down from the mountain with fourteen pages like Moses with the tablets of the law (I do love this metaphor:))
—Jose, I gave them total freedom.
—No, Manolo. You set an ambush. You told them "make it yours" but you meant "guess what I would do." You dropped them in the middle of the ocean with no map and then got angry because they didn't reach the island of your ego.
> Liz Wiseman dissects it in Multipliers: leaders who need to be the smartest person in the room end up cutting their team's intelligence in half.
Not out of malice. Out of addiction. Every time they rewrite, they feel they're contributing. And every time they contribute like that, they destroy the team's ability to function without them.
—Jose, that's harsh.
—You know what's harsher? That in three months you'll come tell me "they can't function without me." And you'll be right. But not because they're bad. Because you trained them not to function without you. You're not the team's engine, Manolo. You're the handbrake someone forgot to release.
—And what do I do with my document?
—Recycle bin?
—Fourteen pages?
—Fourteen pages. Go back to the team. Tell them their proposal is the one moving forward. That you have three questions.
Not three solutions.
Three questions.
And if the answer isn't the one you had in your head, you swallow your pride and let them fly.
—Why?
—Because they'll make the next decision on their own. And the one after that. And one day you'll realize they don't need you anymore. And that day you'll be a leader. Not before.
He closes his laptop. Slowly.
—I'll think about it.
—Perfect. But thinking is not redoing the document as version 3 with the subject "Joint proposal (with my input)".
He leaves.
And I know, with the certainty you get from ten years sitting two meters away from someone, that on Wednesday I'll get a new email. With a new document. With a note that will say "consensus version" but that only Manolo will have touched, in his pajamas, on a Tuesday at eleven at night.
Because Manolo doesn't let go of the wheel. Not even when he's in the back seat. Not even when the car is parked.
Thanks for reading.